Chicago mayor blasts new Trump sign

Jun. 13, 2014
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The new Trump Tower sign in Chicago. / Stacy Thacker, AP

by Beth Belton, USA TODAY

by Beth Belton, USA TODAY

You could be forgiven for thinking that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has spare time on his hands.

On Thursday, his office put out a statement, complaining that Donald Trump has mounted an "architecturally tasteless" sign on the city's second-tallest building, according to several published reports.

The real estate mogul is nearly finished installing 20-foot-high letters, spelling out his name on the 96-story Trump International Hotel and Tower in the nation's third-largest city, Reuters news service reported Thursday.

Trump was quick to respond to Emanuel's diss, saying he was surprised the city's mayor didn't like the sign given his administration had approved it. But Reuters and CBS News, among others, were reporting Thursday that the mayor's office has had a change of heart and is looking at options to get the sign taken down or reduced in size.

"It's a very popular sign -- people are loving it," Trump told Reuters after Emanual's spokesperon, Kelley Quinn, said of the sign: The mayor "believes this is an architecturally tasteful building scarred by an architecturally tasteless sign."

The Chicago Tribune's architecture critic, Blair Kamin, wrote Thursday that the giant stainless steel letters, which rise more than 200 feet high "loom over a venerable cluster of 1920s skyscrapers" and could spoil the view for the ongoing expansion of Chicago's Riverwalk, a huge Emanuel project.

Trump was undeterred. He blasted back on Twitter Thursday, tweeting: "Before I bought the site, the Sun Times had the biggest, ugliest sign Chicago has ever seen. Mine is magnificent and popular."

Emanuel told reporters on Friday that he's asked his staff to review the city's ordinances. He repeated that he believes it is a "very tasteful building" but the sign "scars the architecture." The mayor added that he hadn't spoken personally to Trump to share his criticism of the sign.

"I've asked my staff to look at this, so a situation like this doesn't emerge in the future," Emanuel said.